SOURCE: Tebbetts, Terrell L. “Talking Back to the King: Measure for Measure and the Basilicon Doron.” College Literature 12, no. 2 (spring 1985): 122-34.

In the following essay, Tebbetts asserts that individuals fare better in “a society based on what is organic to human life,” such as that portrayed in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, than in the paternalistic society of Basilikon Doron.

The relationship of Measure for Measure to James I's Basilicon Doron has interested critics for some time. The King's little book advising his son on statecraft was London's best-seller in 1603. Critics early in this century disputed its relationship with Shakespeare's play; W. W. Lawrence, for example, claimed that any resemblance between the works was likely to be “accidental” (108).¹ But more recently those resemblances have seemed too strong for most readers to doubt that Shakespeare deliberately drew on the Basilicon Doron in writing Measure for Measure, perhaps even taking his...